ROBERT GIERLACH

Bass-baritone. Graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, the vocal class under Prof. Kazimierz Pustelak. The artist won the 1st award in the Viotti International Music Competition in Vercelli, Italy, and the audience award in the Alfredo Kraus International Singing Competition in Las Palmas.

Already as a student he began his collaboration with the Warsaw Chamber Opera, where he sang in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. Back then he also performed in the Polish National Opera as Don Basilio in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. He made numerous tours abroad with these theatres (to Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan) He’s also performed in the Baltic Opera in Gdańsk, as well as in the Cracow Opera.

The artist performs on many prestigious opera and concert stages in Europe, North America, and Japan. He’s sang in Teatro La Fenice in Venice (as Count in The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, De Fiesque in Maria di Rohan by Donizetti), Teatro Filarmonico in Verona (as the Pharaoh in Rossini’s Moses in Egypt in the concert version of Mendelssohn Elijah oratorio), Teatro Comunale in Bologne (e.g. as Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Don Profondo in Il viaggio a Reims by Rossini), Teatro dell’ Opera in Rome (Alidor in Rossini’s Cinderella ) and Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. He sang the part of the Count in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in Teatro G. Verdi in Trieste and Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he also played Sabinin in Corghi’s Tatiana.

In France he performed in the opera houses in Nice and Marseilles (as Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni), and in the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris (as Creon in Strawiński’s Oedipus Rex and Archiereus in Szymanowski’s King Roger). His signature performance is the title role of Figaro from Mozart’s opera, whom he played e.g. in the Detroit Opera House, the Nico Theatre in Cape Town (RPA), at the Opera Festival in Glyndebourne, in the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, the Grand Opera in Miami, Florida, the Opera du Montreal, and in the Lyric Opera in Baltimore.

He’s also performed in the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerpen (Argante in Handel’s Rinaldo), in the New York City Opera (Leporello), in the Tokyo-NHK (Creon in Oedipus Rex), and as Don Giovanni in the Arizona Opera and the Cleveland Opera). He played Vronsky in the world premiere of Anna Carenina by D. Carlson performed on stages in the Florida Grand Opera (Miami) and the Opera in Saint Louis.

Gierlach gives many concerts. The artist collaborates with numerous orchestras, such as: the Symphonic Orchestra of the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, the National Symphonic Orchestra of the Polish Radio, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Orchestre National de France, I Solisti Veneti, the City of Birmingham Orchestra, the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Dresdner Rundfunk Orcheser, or the NHK Tokyo Orchestra. He’s also sung with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva and Lausanne, and the Philadelphia Philharmonic in Philadelphia and at the Carnegie Hall in New York (Creon and Messenger in Oedipus Rex by Strawiński).

Gierlach participated in numerous music festivals, e.g. in the Salzburger Festspiele, the BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall), the Berliner Festwoche and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Wratislavia Cantans, and the Mozart Festival of the Warsaw Chamber Opera. He’s collaborated with many acclaimed opera conductors, directors, and singers.

The artist is also an esteemed song performer. He participated regularly in successive editions of the Summer Song Festival of Polish Composers and the European Song Festival, where he performed the song cycles of F. Chopin, M. Karłowicz, P. Łukaszewski, F. Schubert, A. Dvořák, and other composers.

The artist leads the solo vocal class at the Department of Vocal and Acting Studies of the Chopin University of Music.